NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti to the test: the power of the RTX 3090 Ti with DLSS 3 in the pocket

With this review closes the first batch of GeForce RTX 4000 video cards announced by NVIDIA. Yes, because behind this one GeForce RTX 4070 Ti there is none other than what was initially presented as GeForce RTX 4080 12 GB. We have written several times about this change of name in progress, and it is due to the complaints of enthusiasts and the press for the evident performance and specification gap with what we now know simply as GeForce RTX 4080.

GeForce RTX 4070 Ti specs are the same as GeForce RTX 4080 12GBso we have an AD104 GPU with 7680 CUDA cores and 12GB of memory GDDR6X at 21Gbps on bus a 192 bits. The TGP instead equal to 285W. The GeForce RTX 4080, on the other hand, is based on an AD103 GPU with 9728 CUDA cores and features 16 GB of GDDR6X memory at 22.4 Gbps on a 256-bit bus. The TGP, in this case, of 320W.

In short, between the RTX 4080 16 GB and the former 12 GB – now RTX 4070 Ti – there are much more marked differences than just 4 GB, for a performance gap that should be significant. For this launch, NVIDIA has let us know that we won’t see the classic Founders Editions on sale, but only custom models from AIB partners. We got one Gigabyte’s Eagle OC Edition: let’s take a look at them.

The card comes with a heatsink with three WindForce fans and a design that we would define sober, with a stripe and the word Gigabyte that light up thanks to LEDs. The fans are just under 9cm in diameter; the lateral ones rotate counterclockwise, the central one clockwise. An operation which, according to various manufacturers, makes it possible to avoid turbulence and generate noise, guaranteeing greater cooling efficiency.

Otherwise a card without particular accents and / or frills. The 4070 Ti Eagle OC is approximately 30cm long, 5.5cm thick and weighs approximately 1.3kg. We would have liked to see a Founders Edition of this to understand if NVIDIA would have adopted the same heat sink as the 4080 and 4090 (albeit not necessary) or would have created an ad hoc one. In this case, like the other custom based on NVIDIA projects, the backplate displays a large opening to allow hot air to pass through and be expelled from the case.

In the back we find three DisplayPort 1.4a and one HDMI 2.1a like other Ada Lovelace solutions from NVIDIA. Also present is the 16-pin 12VHPWR connector that we have already seen on the other models: it allows power supply via a single cable with ATX 3.0 power supplies, while with older PSUs it is necessary to use thebundled adapter offering two 8-pin connections.

The Eagle OC proposal looks like other custom with a dual BIOS, one OC and one Silent, with a dedicated switch on the side of the board. The clock of 2310 – 2625 MHz (base / boost) with memory at 1313 MHz, or 21 Gbps. To be noted, as visible by observing the side card, is the very small PCB: 17 cm long out of the approximately 30 in total on the card.

Test setup

We carried out the tests on a new platform based on the ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Hero motherboard, 32 GB of G.Skill Trident Z5 DDR5-6000 (30-38-38-38-96) memory and an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X processor with 16 cores and 32 threads. All the cards you will see in the graphs have been tested with Resizable BAR active.

All NVIDIA GPUs – save the 4070 Ti of course – are Founders Edition models; in AMD’s case, the Radeon RX 6950 XT card is a Gigabyte GAMING OC while the other models are reference cards.

GeForce RTX 4070 Ti performance

GeForce RTX 4070 Ti in games without ray tracing

Let’s start as always from performance in titles without active ray tracing and upscaling technologies at work. Small note: if you see the graphs different from the previous reviews, the reason is that, this time, the resolution according to which the video cards were ordered is 2650×1440 pixels and not 3840×2160 pixels.

In our suite the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti proves itself almost aligned with the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, NVIDIA’s next-generation flagship Ampere. There are games where it’s ahead, others where it’s behind, but pulling a line and averaging, we see very similar performance in Full HD and WQHD, while in 4K the 3090 Ti’s extra 12GB and bandwidth seem to help it get some fps more. It must be said that this result is achieved with a TGP of 285W against the 450W of the 3090 Ti. The GeForce RTX 4080 ahead of the RTX 4070 Ti by 7 to 21% depending on the resolution against a TGP of 320W (+12% approximately).

In comparison with the new Radeon RX 7900 XTX and XT graphics cards, the new GeForce RTX 4070 Ti it ranks below the 7900 XT, ahead by 5-13% depending on resolution. Again, the RTX 4070 Ti typically consumes less than the 7900 XT (TBP of 315W). How about the previous generation GeForce RTX 3070 Ti? Well, the leap of the newcomer of 26% in Full HD, while it rises to 40 and 49% respectively in WQHD and 4K.

GeForce RTX 4070 Ti in games with ray tracing (but no upscaling)

Let’s move on to performance with ray tracing active, an area where what we saw in rasterization is confirmed: the 3090 Ti and 4070 Ti are very close to each other.

As for the comparison with AMD, the review of the two new Radeons showed us how the company led by Lisa Su is still behind in terms of ray tracing performance compared to the best results obtained by NVIDIA: the 7900 XTX at the level of this RTX 4070 Ti, surpassing it only in 4K, while the RX 7900 XT behind on average by about 10%.

GeForce RTX 4070 Ti with upscaling, DLSS 3 plus

As we have already seen in the reviews of the 4080 and 4090 models, as well as the two new 7900 from AMD, NVIDIA and the GeForce RTX 4000 video cards can currently count on an advantage in terms of upscaling technologies given by DLSS 3. The NVIDIA solution capable of maintaining high image quality while further increasing performance due to the effect of Frame Generation which generates seven eighths of the final image. The exclusive technology of the new solutions, including RTX 4070 Ti, and at the moment AMD does not have a valid competitor: we will have to wait for FSR 3 during 2023.

Frequencies, consumption, temperatures and noise

The AD104 GPU in the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti on the Gigabyte Eagle OC, in our usual 4K Ultra Metro EE load, can hit thanks to the boost algorithms up to about 2800 MHz, something more than the GeForce RTX 4080 (the data in this section are from the Founders Edition). With Ada Lovelace NVIDIA has further raised the clocks on the whole range, so much so that with a good OC card you can exceed 3 GHz.

The Gigabyte video card cooling system allows the NVIDIA GPU to settle around 62-63 C, a decidedly low value and certainly not a cause for concern. Interesting to see how the more powerful AD103 GPU stops at slightly lower temperatures than the AD103 of Gigabyte’s 4070 Ti: further confirmation that the 4080 Founders heat sink was decidedly disproportionate to the real needs. The noise level of the card is almost in line with that of many others that have passed through the laboratory: with an ambient value of 40.7 dB we recorded a peak of 50.3 dB under load.

Gigabyte’s GeForce RTX 4070 Ti’s power consumption sits close to NVIDIA’s quoted, slightly edging out at around 290W. This is more or less the same TGP as the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, performance detached in raster games by an average of 50% in 4K.

Conclusions

The GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is an RTX 3090 Ti with DLSS 3 and significantly lower power consumption. The summary of our tests is this (the average graph below, which covers WQHD resolution only, speaks for itself), and some time ago such a card would probably have become a best buy. We have to parameterize it to the market situation and current prices.

The starting price of this GeForce RTX 4070 Ti listed by NVIDIA’s 919 VAT includeda decidedly lower value (-510) than the 1429 required today for the basic GeForce RTX 4080. AMD’s RX 7900 XTX is positioned at 1169.99 euros, while the RX 7900 XT model starts at 1059.99 euros.

Reiterating first of all what was written in the past, namely that the price list of the GeForce RTX 4080 in our opinion excessively highin the current market scenario, the new NVIDIA proposal is positioned on a price list appropriate to its capabilities compared to those of the competition: the new generation card that costs absolutely less and brings the performance of the 3090 Ti below 1000.

If we add the better RT performance compared to AMD, the DLSS 3 and the rather low consumption, the result is a good card for those who want to play at high resolutions with high performance. By the way, compared to the original RTX 4080 12 GB from which this proposal was born, it is worth noting that NVIDIA has cut 190 from the 1109 indicated in the September announcement.

It is useless to spend too many words on the fact that in the past the “70” solutions cost between 500 and 600 euros, this is the market scenario and it is useless to tell jokes: given the behavior of the card parameterized to the Radeon RX 7900 XT, it would not have been sensible for NVIDIA to go down further – to be honest we feared an even higher price.

As for the Eagle OC we tested, Gigabyte’s card performed admirably during the test, keeping the hardware cool without too much difficulty and quite silently. Furthermore, the sober design does not displease us at all, even if we clearly enter the subjective sphere.